


Ripples and Regret

by Akumaloligirl



Category: Original Work
Genre: Depression, Family, Family Dynamics, Gen, Grief, Loss, Mourning, Multiple Pov, Religion, Sad, Self Harm, Trigger Warnings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-20 16:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13721937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumaloligirl/pseuds/Akumaloligirl
Summary: A tragic car accident causes a family to grieve. I will be updating if people want this. I already have a lot pre written.





	Ripples and Regret

It was a sad day. While other families were sitting around the dinner table in the company of distant relatives and loved ones, Aimee Thurston sat on the cold ground of her basement with one leg completely numb. Just like her emotions. 

She had an array of papers and clothes spread out around her. A much beloved stuffed animal missing it's right eye stared blankly at her as she worked. Folders full of failed childhood drawings and old schoolwork were hastily shoved aside. Old, tarnished pieces of black and other leather jewelry twinkled at her. There was a fake school with a laughing grin to her left. Beside her was a forgotten photo album full of pictures from when her sister tried, and failed, at photography as a hobby. It felt like she was sitting in a nest full of memories. 

But Aimee refused to cry. The only sign that this came to her with some difficulty was the subtle trembling of her lower lip as she put away the photo album into a blue plastic bin to her right. 

The air was moist here. Winter has corrupted the I heated basement, sending cold tremors soaking into her very bones. She shivered, all of her aching. There was a dull pain in her knees from sitting on the concrete ground in this awkward position for so long. 

The collection of her sister's things diminished quickly as more and more items were boxed away. During the entire time, Aimee felt like she was working on autopilot, dazedly sorting the clothes and stuffed animals together, and keeping the documents and binders separate. Soon, the basement shelves were filed with blue plastic boxes filled with her sister's memories. 

Only one left. Aimee pushed back a copper lock that had escaped the clip at the nape of her neck which held back. The tangled mess of her hair. Her amber eyes, which had once held a spark of joy were now deadened into a murky brown. There was a family picture album stashed away beneath a pile of her sister's birth certificate. The absurd need to look at it seized her. 

She reached out a pale hand and flipped it open randomly. She knew it was old because she recognized the lack of morbidity that became her sister's flair as the years had past further from childhood. Biting her traitorous lip, Aimee gazed at a picture of her sister and her. 

Aimee was a bit short in that picture, and poked her head out behind her sister, whose arms were thrown out. Rebecca flashed a toothy grin at the camera, copper hair as wild as, Aimee's hair was now. 

Aimee carelessly ripped the picture out of the album and stuffed it in her pocket for later before throwing the album itself into one of the last nine. The thunk was startled in the cool, damp silence. More time past, and she was once again lost in the haze. Most of her sister's things did not appeal to her, and she gazed at the unerringly, feeling like an accountant sorting through the receipts of a client inside of organizing her dead sister's things simply because she couldn't bare looking at them anymore. 

Her stomach growled, a gnawing feeling. It was pathetic. Turkey sandwiches weren't even available today in the house. On today, her mother usually went all out. She went to the butcher and would buy a giant, fresh turkey that she would cook for several hours. She had to get up at four in the morning to prepare everything. And all their relatives would come to their house. Great Aunt Bathilda would bring her prune syrup cake for dessert and would complain about the dryness of the stuffing. Cousin Sheldon would bring an expensive bottle of scotch for the all men to drink at dinner. Normally, on this day the house would be filled with voices. Instead all was eerily silent. 

Not that she wanted to eat. She could resolve to starve herself until she was finished. What did it matter? One thanksgiving without a big dinner amidst a life that was going to stretch on and on drearily? That was nothing in comparison to everything else. 

Aimee hesitated when she reaches the last piece of her sister's memory. Er breath caught in the back of her throat as she reached out, hands shaking. As with the album, she felt compelled to look at it. 

She slowly blinked as her finger closed around a diary. It was covered in pink felt and looked like it was home made. How bad she not noticed it when she was lugging all the contents of her sister's room down to the basement? Most of the memorabilia were monochrome, never deviating from the white, grey, and black color scheme. Something so bright and cheerful should have been easily spotted before now. 

Aimee forced herself to breathe--inhal, exhale--as she cracked open the spine. It was old, probably made when Rebecca had been a grade schooler, long before her "Call of the Goth" period. Memories flooded her. Not that she had ever been ashamed of her sister when she started wearing safety pin earrings and inverted crosses that made their mom almost go into cardiac arrest, but back then they'd been as close as twins. They had been a terror to reckon with.

Like the time when Rebecca had insisted that the two of them run away because they needed "to escape the shackles of the seven o'clock bedtime rules". That resulted in a pitifully packed suitcase--filled with Oreos, a jacket, a blanket, and Aimee's piggy all that had only five dollars in change--and three hours of huddling together on the slide in a park a couple of blocks away from their house. There was no need to say that they'd been found by their flustered mother only three hours later. 

The memory tightened in her chest and she shook her head as she held the book. Despite her pain, she could almost smile, empty as it would be. It hurt to remember--felt like a scab on her soul was ripped off too many times and had become one large malformed scar--but sometimes... Sometimes it helped. Aimee supposed that was why some people kept high school yearbooks even if their high school life had been absolute hell. 

But if she rallied over it any longer, all that supposedly therapeutic part of it would face and the soul-deep pain would be all that was left. It was why she was boxing up her sister's things in the first place. So she wouldn't be crushed until she was nothing more than a husk of a human, forever incapable of feeling, forever afflicted by this sociopathic apathy. 

She blinked and despite the utter emptiness of the here and now, forced herself out of her memories. Looking at the diary was painful in an almost physical way, but it displayed a side of Rebecca that Aimee had not known for a long time. And would never now again. 

Would never know what might have been. If Rebecca would have gone to the college she always raved about and gotten her the degree in journalism that she always wanted. Not that she had ever been particularly good at documenting anything but no one had wanted to crush her dreams. 

The first page of the diary depicted a messy, juvenile sketch of a lady bug colored sloppily in red and black crayon. It must have been quickly drawn or Rebecca might have simply lost interest as it was missing one antenna and had only three legs. Judging from the talent, or lack thereof, Rebecca must have been somewhere around nine years old at its creation. 

Rebecca always did love drawing when she found the patience to sit still. However, despite years of artwork that their mother lovingly hung on the fridge to the point of being one large rectangular mosaic of construction paper, badly drawn stick figures and black poodles, Rebecca never did improve much. Nor could ever claim a talent. 

Aimee remembered when her sister had taken an art class her sophomore year. By then, Rebecca was already more than knee-deep in love with all this dark and morbid and leather and fishnet. Her art teacher had been a man that Aimed knew of only as "Mr. Amish Hippie", having been dubbed that by the one and only Rebecca as result of the way the teacher never cut his hair--facial or otherwise--and always talked about morality and strength of character. Aimee was also well acquainted with the other dozens of reasons for Rebecca's firm dislike of the man. The corners of her lips upturned at the memory of her sister's low, angry voice as she ranted. As the semester had gone on and the other students improved in their artwork, Rebecca's possibility for creating a masterpiece remained at the same impossible level. Mr. Amish Hippie accused Rebecca of not taking the class seriously. 

Being that art was one of the few classes she took utterly seriously as opposed to every other class which she put sub-par effort in, Rebecca did not take the insult well. The ensuing event put Rebecca on a two day suspension and out of art class permanently. But despite that she never stopped drawing her talentless, anamorphous blob ex works of "art". By then, it was no longer proudly displayed on the fridge. Their mother thought it was sinful abominations since her talented daughter couldn't possibly be drawing them that badly on accident. 

Taking a deep breath, Aimee began flipped further into the diary, the cold basement silent but for the rustling of frail, yellowed pages. The next couple of sheets were filled with several other drawings; an assortment of pathetic attempts at still life, random scribbles, and what looked like little more than ink blots to Aimee. 

How like her, thought Aimee, her apathetic dullness cheering at the sidelines loud enough for her to look at the diary without her breathing coming in shallow pants. Or her heart to start tearing in two. Though there was an unknown kind of pressure on her chest. 

She flipped past the artwork, having lost interest at looking at horrifyingly awful squiggles, until she came to a page that was filled entirely with her sister's chaotic spindly handwriting. Each page was written with a different utensil.

Aimee could vaguely recall a time when her big sister carried around a diary--perhaps this one--so that she could write something new immediately. She must have been forced to use whatever was on hand since she never had the sense to bring a pencil with her. 

The first actual diary entry was written with stubby black crayon that was so illegible that Aimee didn't bother with attempting to read it. If she wanted to destroy her eyes and give herself wrinkles from squinting, she'd read her mother's tattered old bible. Which shed made a pact never to do. 

However, after turning the page, Aimee discovered the following entry was written in sparkly pink ink from a ball point pen. She hesitated to read it, and took a deep breath, wondering if she was imagining the shaking of her hands. Her eyes focused:

 

Stupid stupid jerkfase teecher. I wish Ms. Tyler would go back 2 Oz so the house can finaly fall on her! She diserves 2 burn in the hell momie talks about. I wish her a crule fate. I writen a informetive (that was one of our vocabulary words I lerned) report on the crulety animals sufer at sirkuses. Ms. Tyler said it was inabriopriet and she sent me to the office. Stupid principle 2! Everyone blue this waaaaay out of portion! Just cuz I talked about all the skars and dirty conditions of poo in the kages and the constantly being whipped stuff, they said I was distirbed. I'm distirbed just cuz they don't want to no the truth. The truth must be none! Stupid stupid stupid. Stupid school don't no anything. Stupid. 

 

Stupid was written about twenty more times, and a picture of what seemed to be Rebecca's teacher being crushed to death under Aimee's old dollhouse was dipicted below. Though it was not very eloquent yet, Aimee almost laughed. How like Rebecca, she thought. The opinions l, the excessive use of the word stupid, and all the horrible spelling and grammar--all were very like her in a way that befitted her when she was however old she was when she wrote this. 

But after a moment, the tightness in her chest got worse. Aimee put a hand over her heart, a pained expression on her face. It was all so painfully familiar. As she had read, she could almost hear her sister's voice in her head. Waves of grief overwhelmed Aimee. She was trembling so badly she nearly dropped the diary. She stared, dead-eyed, at the dull concrete ground for a long time until some of the pain ebbed away. It took many still, pressured moments before she was able to cast the blanket of apathy back over herself.

Inhale, exhale. Her chest expanded. Lungs filled with air. As she breathed out, the air was forced out sharply, and her chest fell with a fast hitch. Teeth gritting, she focused on the feeling of vibration through her limbs, after the shaking died down to a gentle throb and a sporadic twinge now and then.

Having regained control, and the humanity and emotion having left her eyes, she flipped more than halfway through the massive diary. Judging from the way the writing utensils seemed to even out between a cycle of regular pens and pencils, it seemed that several years had passed. No doubt, Rebecca had eventually lost interest in recording her every chaotic thought and forgot about it. Then she probably found it wedged under her bed--or The Storage of Mystery, Marvels, and Moldy Pizza as Rebecca dubbed it several years back--and took up writing again. 

This new page was written in blue pen, and despite the random ink blot and rushed, sloppy handwriting, it was legible enough--by some miracle--for Aimee to read:

 

I found an hourglass at a yard sale yesterday and asked mom 2 buy it 4 me. She refused, of course, since she's stupidly against anything cool since cool always equates 2 satanism. It's like--whatever bible thumper! But I remember what it looked like. It was so pretty. The glass was so smooth even though some parts were smudged with suspicious gunk. The sand inside looked so timeless. Like it hadn't aged. Preserve like something precious, each grain of golden sand a second in time. I wonder what it would be like 2 be inside it. Would I be preserved too? Become relevant 2 the world like Time, to which the bulk of the general population is enslaved. This thought keeps going through my head--making me CRAZY. It's chewing away at my thoughts. I want 2 be important like that. 2 have meaning. I'm almost as obsessed about this as Aimee is about her creepy Barbie doll collection. (I'm really worried about her. What kind of 11 year old still likes barbies?) I digress. When we got home, I tried giving mom The Guilt Trip, but she just looked me straight in the face and said it was nonsense since it wasn't perfectly perfect and that we had digital cocos now that are much more accurate, blah blah blah. Et cetera et cetera. 

 

"Rebecca," Aimee whispered, so softly it strained her vocal cords. She dragged her thumb lightly across the page, closing her eyes to the sound of paper crinkling. As if touching it would make Rebecca real again.


End file.
